


Send a Prayer to the Ones Up Above

by Ash_Cassidy97



Category: X-Men (Alternate Timeline Movies), X-Men - All Media Types, X-Men: First Class (Comics)
Genre: Alex Summers was kinda awesome., Charles Always Says the Absolute Worst Thing He Could Possibly Say, Like literally the worst. that's not what happens here but that's who is he is., Multi, Peter is a Good Guy, Scott Summers Centric, Scott Summers handles his shit, like damn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-27
Updated: 2017-11-27
Packaged: 2019-02-07 15:05:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12843720
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ash_Cassidy97/pseuds/Ash_Cassidy97
Summary: This is what it’s like to be Scott Summers. At sixteen, you are a punk. At nineteen, everybody relies on you. You tuck Matty in at night because he can’t process for shit, you help Lilla with her calc homework because the numbers work.This is about the years between.





	Send a Prayer to the Ones Up Above

This is what it’s like to be Scott Summers. At sixteen, you are a punk. At nineteen, everybody relies on you. You tuck Matty in at night because he can’t process for shit, you help Lilla with her calc homework because the numbers work.

 

This is about the years between.

 

At sixteen, you’re given a car. Your brother is lost in a war with only an ink bridge connecting you, and your perfectly white-picket fence parents give you a vehicular replacement.

 

You lounge in the car with a  _ Captain America _ comic on your lap, sipping pop, trying to imagine all the places you’ll go. Long after it all, there will still be a stack of Cap comics in the glovebox.

 

Alex was the one who ended up in prison because he was a freak, he was the odd man out in the white-picket fence brigade. And he got out, he did, and Scott couldn’t help but envy him a little for that. And Alex signed up for a war because Charles taught him to be a fighter because that what was needed, even though they were all so young, and it felt like a game.   
  


Alex signed up for wars because he never knew how to not to back down from a fight. But he liked solitary confinement and  _ Captain America  _ comics, and muscle cars.

 

And you visit him every single week for years, juggling the phone and practicing your Spanish.

 

Alex only comes home after you when you blow up a bathroom. Water was everywhere. Shit was everywhere. You are shaking, cold, wet, and wearing a strip of your shirt around your face. You are also completely covered in shit.

 

This was your first warzone.

 

Most people would like to think it was Egypt, or-or-or something, something not so innocent as a high school bathroom.

 

You kissed a girl and became a bomb. Well, you think, at least the jacket is more of an irony than anything else.

 

You scrub the shit off at the police station. You don’t know how you can get soap in your eyes when they’re squeezed tight, but so it goes if you’re Scott Summers. Eventually the police let you go because your parents know enough to scream things like “self-defense,” and “why the fuck was my kid getting beat up in the first place?”.

 

And you think about Steve Rogers, bullying his way up to be a soldier because he doesn’t like bullies. You try to not compare yourself to him. You try to forget that you never wanted to be a soldier.

 

And Alex. Alex comes home and you can’t fucking see him. You’ll never see anybody again, and Alex keeps going on about this Charles guy, like he’s a fucking messiah. And you, you just want to get out of the house, to leave your parents who look at you like you’re the threat. You don’t need to see to know everybody’s looking at you like you’re a loaded bomb.

 

“Hey,” Alex tells you. “It’ll be okay.”

 

“Okay,” you say back because you’re blind, and maybe your brother is freaking out as well.

 

And Charles. Charles sets you loose on an innocent tree because Charles is a scientist and he’s never been smart enough to be scared of kids who need help.

 

It’s only much later that you learn about a child adopting another kid in a cold, sterile kitchen. Charles was never smart enough to call the police.

 

Charles has never been smart enough to back down from a fight when he has kids tucked up behind him. He did a good job of passing that on to enough people to get them killed.

 

And you. You get glasses, shades that make you look like an asshole, and you play it up. These kids think they know shit about your life, think they know you, that you’re just another sob story, and fuck that noise.

 

But before the shades. Before Charles. You bump into a girl, knocking her things over. She smells like sunlight and fire.

 

And you get red glasses.

 

Jean Gray looks like she’s already burning from the inside out, and like she’s already burned. And you won’t see her without glasses until much later, and then you get the full irony of her hair.

 

You don’t really see her until Egypt and she’s more beautiful than anybody you’ve ever seen. Your brother is buried in the rubble of a school, because it was a fucking school and there are children at risk in a warzone.

 

And they all go back. They all rebuild the school like it’s a permanent structure. Like they’re  _ safe _ . It’s almost believable, but your brother died fifty feet from Charles’ ethics class.

 

And Charles. Charles gives you useless platitudes about not fighting the night before the first day of actual school. Charles, who you watched write letter upon letters to get his kids into school, tells you not to fight.

 

And Charles got the irony, he did. He wants his kids to be better than him. He wants them to have an education and a home, and be happy. And Charles was too stupid to not take on the whole damn world for it.

 

“You think this is gonna go well?” Jean asks you, shouldering her bag, and looking like a warrior queen. But that’s what you see, you with your red glasses, like there’s already blood in the water. Most people see a huddled group of teenagers, teenagers who represent a threat to the future of mankind.

 

And you think about Steve Rogers, who just . . .didn’t like bullies. And you start to get his point a little better. You can’t help but wonder if he saw warzones in schoolyards.

 

“Hell no,” you say, blocking a punk about to hit Lily in the back of the head. “Move along, these are not the droids you’re looking for.” You knock shoulders with Jean, and you both start handling your flock of younglings.

 

Years, years later, most think that’s where it starts. That’s your first battleground. But you were fighting long before then. Jean was a fighter long before Egypt. But that, that was where you started fighting together, keeping a flock of people safe.

Maybe that’s where you actually became an X-man.

 

It sure as shit wasn’t when Raven gave her big speech about not being kids anymore. You never forget that. You all are kids fighting a war.

 

Four months later, everybody knew not to touch the mutants kids because you would beat their ass into the ground. Two days later, you become a permanent fixture in the principal office. Three days later, the teachers never notice you lightly handling the stupid kids.

 

Peter was the one who wrapped your hands up that first night.

 

You were not a soldier. You know how to throw a punch but that’s it. So you’re covered in bruises, sitting in the kitchen with the knowledge that you’ll wake up tomorrow and do it all over again.

 

“Hey,” Peter says, forcing you to look up. “Keep fighting, no matter what Charles says.”

 

“Yeah?” you ask, because you are a child in a war, and Peter has a few years on you.

 

“Yeah. I have a little sister back home. We protect those who can’t protect themselves.”

 

“Okay,” you agree. Because your brother is dead and the world is a tangled mess. But you’re learning to never back down from a fight. But you don’t forget that you never wanted to be a soldier in this war.

 

“And make sure to keep your hands up,” Peter advised, handing you an ice pack.

 

So you fight.

 

By month four, there’s no longer an issue of mutants in schools. Jean helpfully keeps most of the teachers from doing anything about it. Charles writes his letters and stops telling you off so much.

 

One day, you’ll meet Steve Rogers in the rubble of your city. And there is no longer the hero worship of your youth. You share a look of “what stupid shit do we have to fight now?”, and get back to work. Your brother is still dead. Jean’s something else. But there’s a city of people who need help. And well.

 

Summers’s have never been smart enough to back down.

**Author's Note:**

> let’s be clear. Matty is Matt Murdock and I’ll take you to court over it. Let’s be clear. This is about my issues with Scott Summers never getting a childhood and just. He won me over with Spanish, and I hate Spanish, not the culture, just school Spanish. Be real: Scott and Steve get together every Friday night to bitch about their work.
> 
> Please review. It's why I write.


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